There is something really satisfying about visualising, planning and constructing your own sim racing rig, especially if your wood-based Formula style DIY sim rig concept happens to be based on a real world F1 car! Always on the lookout for something interesting on the subject of sim racing and sim racing hardware, I came across this MDF, or Plywood-based, concept for an Formula style monocoque on FaceBook, designed by Harris Muhammad.

I thought I would reach out to Harris and ask him a few questions about how he came up with his cool looking design. Harris is originally from Indonesia and his daily profession is working as an architect. He first got into sim racing about five years ago and has designed several low cost DIY-style cockpits for himself and others.

This particular design was commissioned by a friend of his, whom was looking for a low cost Formula styled cockpit constructed from wood. The brief was to keep the costs as low as possible without sacrificing the aesthetics or the functionality of the design. Harris told me his concept is also loosely based on the ever popular HyperStim simulators from Australia.

For inspiration, Harris turned to the Sauber F1 team’s cut-away image, where Sauber literally took a giant saw blade and cut the Sauber in half lengthways, exposing the internals and true seating position of their driver at the time, which was Sergio Perez. As far as measurements go, Harris adhered as much as possible to the original image in order to accurately achieve the F1 driver’s seating position.

The tools required for this type of DIY project are quite basic; a jigsaw, router, drill, sander, squares and rulers will get you there! Material wise, the cockpit could be made from 18mm Plywood, cheap and readily available, or 18mm MDF, also equally as cost effective and available. Having built my own MDF-based sim rig, I can attest to how rewarding it is when you see the finished result and are able to climb in and go racing. My thanks to Harris Muhammad for sharing his YouTube video, as well as taking the time to explain his motivation behind this design. Stay tuned for more to come, folks! (By Mark PUC)